This video will be very helpful when I teach movement lessons. This woman is very good at pantomime and will be a good starting point for the students to see a very good mime at work so they can see how it is to be done. I think it will be interesting for the students to watch and bring some differentiation into the lesson too.
Technology articles
Skype
In the article “Skype Use in the Enterprise” it says that “Skype got its start as a virtual Internet phone company and owes much of its growth to the fact that users can make free calls to other Skype contacts regardless of their location.” Skype is a free downloadable tool that now comes with many computers. If a computer has a web camera built in anyone can use the free service of video to video calling with any other person who has it too. Not only this, but you can call people’s landlines with Skype but there is a fee attached to this. For my purposes of education value, I would just use the video calls that would be free.
When students learn to act whether it be performing a monologue, scenes or pantomime they love to get feedback from other students. Students can assess each other but I think if we as a class could use Skype to talk with other schools (like pen pals) and perform our monologues or scenes for them this would be a really neat concept. Students would be able to watch how other students from different parts of the state and country or even internationally are performing and what they are learning. In return in can be beneficial for the other students we will be working with too. This is just one benefit of using Skype.
Another idea of this is that students who have Skype at home could use it to communicate and even work with other students in the class on their performances. This is all from the comfort of their own home, or wherever their laptop is! In an article, “7 thing you should know about Skype” from www.educause.edu/eli it gives this experience a college has had using Skype,
“Faculty at a Tribal College in Arizona developed a project to collect oral histories and build a library of recordings of Native American languages that are disappearing. Students from the linguistics and history departments participating in the project interviewed members of dozens of Indian Nations across the United States and Canada and made digital recordings of those conversations. Traditional long-distance phone service was relatively expensive, and cell phone coverage for many Native American reservations is spotty. Nearly all of the reservations included in the project had at least one satellite Internet connection, however, and the organizers of the project decided to use Skype to conduct the interviews.”
These students were able to use Skype to further their education and I believe that it will be a tool that will be used a lot in time to come.
In the same article,“7 thing you should know about Skype” it gives us some ideas on what the downsides of Skype are, “The sound quality from Skype is not as consistent and reliable as that of landline or cell phones. Skype also raises a number of concerns about security and resource consumption.” I would also add that not everyone will have a computer with a web camera and therefore couldn’t participate from home if they needed to.
“Skype Use in the Enterprise.” Tech and Trends. October 9, 2009 • Vol.31 Issue 25 http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Fp3125%2F32p25%2F32p25%2F32p25.asp
“7 things you should know about...Skype” Educase Learning initiative . December 2007,
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7032.pdf
Virtual tour of Globe Theatre
In Utah students are able to participate in a competition every fall down in Cedar city, known as the Shakespeare competition. Students get to learn Shakespearian monologues and scenes and one acts and go and compete with other schools from around the state. The students look forward to this time of year and it helps them feel a sense of accomplishment whether they win or not.
Before the students participate in this competition I feel it is important to have the students study Shakespeare and his time. I want them to understand the time period and what it would be like to perform back then with the same pieces of theatre they will be performing. To help in this endeavor or teaching these students what it is like I found a very helpful website that is a virtual tour of The Globe Theatre.
The Globe theatre is where many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed. The Globe theatre was actually burned to the ground during a performance of Henry VIII. But, “The foundations of the Globe were rediscovered in 1989, rekindling interest in a fitful attempt to erect a modern version of the amphitheater. Led by the vision of the late Sam Wanamaker, workers began construction in 1993 on the new theatre near the site of the original. The latest Globe Theatre was completed in 1996” (Shakespeare Resource Center)
Because it would not be cost effective to take the students to London to see The Globe theatre this website I have found can let the students go on a virtual tour of the theatre. It shows the theatre from different perspectives. It lets the students see how the theatre looked back in the day of Shakespeare. After seeing what it looks like, It might be fun for them to think about how it would be to act on that very stage. Or even think about what it might be like to be a audience member. The poor people actually got to stand in front of the stage and the rich people got the balcony seats. The students can see all of these perspectives on this tour and will have fun virtually being at the Globe theatre. Now this virtual tour is just computer generated and not real video of the actual theatre so it’s not the best and lifelike but I think it is good enough to have the students go on and see what it looks like.
References
Shakespeare Resource Center, http://www.bardweb.net/globe.html
Shakespeare’s Globe, Virtual tour. http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/virtualtour/
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